


Want you, need you,

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [43]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 06:16:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14278665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: It starts with crawling comfort in inn rooms in the dead of night, and ends in promises sworn to the sky.





	Want you, need you,

**Author's Note:**

> Hhh gay

They’ve started, now, slipping away in the dead of night to one another’s rooms for comfort and reassurance, returning in the grey early light of morning feeling somewhat cold and empty without the comforting weight of an arm thrown over them.   
It started small, Molly and Fjord, back in Alfield. As soon as Molly knew, really, that Fjord was fun and trustworthy and a  _ friend _ , someone that wouldn’t put their blade through his chest in the night- he should know, it’s happened before- and once he knew, that was it. Fjord found a dry-sobbing, shaking tiefling, crawling into bed beside him as silently as possible and curling at the edge of the bed like a cat, craving the company and solidity, still wary of getting too close in case Fjord got mad. Fjord had scooped him up, and when they’d awoken in the morning, the top half of Molly’s body was flumped on Fjord’s chest, his head tucked under Fjord’s chin, and Fjord’s fingers slipped through the belt loops on Molly’s pants to stay in place- Molly had forgotten to remove them the night before.   
From there it spread, it wasn’t just Fjord that Molly went to when he felt off. Fjord, now, Fjord was the one that Molly could trust, the friend, but Caleb? Well, he was something else entirely. Molly couldn’t trust him in the slightest, even if he tried, but he was enamored and Caleb was a graceful creature of shadow and light, there was a chord in his internal rhythm that reverberated exactly in tune with one inside Molly’s, and if Caleb was an instrument, Molly thinks he would be a violin. Beautiful and elegant and sad, strung with Molly’s own heartstrings and his bow drawn along was every time Caleb cast, every time his eyes went distant with memory or magic, the way that he looks when he’s reading, Caleb continues to play a melody. Molly isn’t sure what it is yet, it’s too early into the performance, but he hopes that it could be a medley of both of their internal tunes.   
And that’s why Caleb is the second that Molly crawls into bed with at night, though at first it’s less  _ into bed with _ and more  _ across _ outside Zadash, a failed sentinel over bedding down for comfort, and then Caleb had come to him in The Leaky Tap.   
He was surprised, at first, to find Molly and Fjord sharing a double, but he really should have seen it coming when he considers it. Molly grounds himself so much with the physical, touching others, himself, his hands roam more than his eyes for something  _ solid _ to anchor him in the present and Gods, if that isn’t something Caleb understands. And why he picks the lock at their door and slides into bed beside Molly, only Molly, not that he doesn’t like Fjord, too, but he wants someone he can hold tonight, and Fjord’s half-orc blood makes it hard to get an arm all the way around him. Or at least he suspects, from his dreams.   
Molly is half-awake from the noise he makes coming into their room, he closes the door with a quiet  _ click _ behind him and Fjord sleeps on but Molly’s eyes burn warmly, he knows the footstep and nervous breathing and pulls the covers back a little.   
“Come here.” He says, quiet, and Caleb is there in moments and to Molly’s chest and he doesn’t register, just presses a kiss to Molly’s clavicle as their arms settle around one another, and falls away in Molly’s embrace. He doesn’t hear the “ _ Fuck, I love you. _ ” from Molly, doesn’t feel the kiss to the top of his head, has no idea how badly Molly wants to kiss him, feel the heat of Caleb’s lips and see how he tastes when he’s tinged with whatever’s drawn him here. Caleb slips away, sleep, and that’s all he knows.

 

Until the cellar, when he’s alone and has no choice and Nott is  _ right there _ but she’s not what he wants right now, he leaves his coat and his books and the dodecahedron, tucked away close to Nott if anything should happen and changes his Alarm to audible for now, he’ll change it back if he comes back down, but it should wake Nott. And he leaves, he’s only around the side when he bumps, physically, into Mollymauk, who seems to have had much the same idea as Caleb and then his back is to a cold brick wall and the only thing between Caleb and concussion is Molly’s hand in the hair on the back of his head cushioning the blow to the wall and Molly’s lips are so close to his, he halts only at the last second and if he had pupils, there’d be no red left. Caleb knows there’s no blue to his own and chokes out what sounds like a pleading noise and Molly kisses him so hard he sees three or four kinds of stars, pain of his skull pressing too hard into the bone of Molly’s knuckles, there’s no way he hasn’t grazed them against the wall, pain of the copper taste where Molly’s teeth catch his bottom lip a little too hard, too clumsy, his canines cut. And the best, the best of all, the relief and finality that Molly is kissing him, it’s been two weeks, it feels like forever, and Caleb is sure that if Molly had waited even a split second longer, it would have been a split second past infinity and he would have been trapped like that forever. Stars like confetti in his eyelids as Molly changes his angle from hot and desperate to sweet, his tongue laps lightly over the wound in Caleb’s lip and the irritation of sore flesh makes Caleb whimper. Molly draws back from the kiss, presses his forehead to Caleb’s instead and pushes as though he’s trying to fit against him as flat as possible,   
“Fuck, I’m sorry, Caleb, darling-” There’s a ramble of pet names and apologies and Caleb’s name and Caleb’s breath feels like he’s taking in clouds of nebula, a tingling thickness that he associates, usually, with a panic attack but there’s a lightness and dizziness that is suck the opposite that it couldn’t possibly be, he realises that his hands are at Molly’s back and moves just one up, considers cupping Molly’s cheek sweet and lovely, the same as the syrup that’s dripping from the tiefling’s tongue. And then he disregards it and ghosts higher and takes a firm hold of a horn instead, tilts and pulls until Molly’s lips crash back to his own and he’s sure there’s blood smeared across both of their chins but fuck, he needs, he needs, he needs Molly’s heat now, right now, before he burns himself out.   
“ _ Fuck. _ ” Molly whispers against Caleb’s lips, because it’s the only word he can think of that isn’t Caleb’s name, and his mind helpfully supplies an alternative, “ _ More _ .”   
Caleb, ever the avid reader, is a little more eloquent in his words, even if most are in Zemnian under the heat, a rolling chorus of “ _ Meine Liebe, mein Schatz, meine Welt, ich liebe dich, _ ” and repeat, a new word every time he draws breath or puts enough space to move his mouth. It devolves, slowly, opposite of Molly, until it’s just “Mine, mine, mine.” Over, and over, and that’s preferable, if Molly is honest, because whether it’s Common or Zemnian, he doesn’t know, it seems to have the same meaning.

There’s blood and desperate kissing and gasps for nearing five minutes and when Molly actually steps away again and takes Caleb’s hands, the dizziness is for lack of oxygen, not for alcohol or the haze of affection and adoration.   
They take a minute to gasp and fill themselves back up with air and the ability to think in words that aren’t just the same sentence mixed up and on repeat.   
“That was… something.” Molly is the first to find his tongue, a little dirty and bloodied but undoubtedly still silver. “A long time coming, I should think. What a  _ fucking _ song!” And it seems the last bit, crowed to the sky, is more for himself and Bahamut, if he so chooses, than for Caleb, who deigns not to ask.   
“Mollymauk, I, I, I, Please, tell me this isn’t an, an impulse decision.” He chooses, instead, the stutter of unsurity in his torn tongue, still rough and accented, more heavily than usual, and Molly sighs and lets go of Caleb’s right hand to cup his jaw instead.    
“Oh, my love, no, no,” he tries for more words, but Caleb’s eyes are blue again and it’s like falling into daylight, framed by the glow of moonlight on scarred skin, “No.” and he finishes it, firm, his breath still shallow in his chest.   
Caleb jerks forward, he’s just fractionally shorter but he makes a damn good effort at tucking under Molly’s chin as he wraps his arms around his waist and hugs, bones clicking, spine cracking, Molly sighs again and pulls Caleb in, too, twists and tilts until he can kiss the top of Caleb’s head, he’s sure blood isn’t the worst thing that he’s ever had in his hair.    
“You know that we can’t stay together tonight.” Molly says, and it’s sad, even a little forlorn, Caleb nods fractionally,   
“I know.”   
“Would if I could.” Molly mumbles into Caleb’s hair, and Caleb breathes deep and hard,   
“Soon. Soon, and forever.”   
Molly smiles.   
“I promise.” And draws Caleb back from his chest to kiss him again, this time so light that it’s barely a kiss at all, just a brush.   
“Go back to Fjord.” Caleb tells Molly, gently, “I will see you in the morning.” There’s a hand on Molly’s waist and it squeezes, gently, into the hollow of his hip.   
Molly butts his forehead to Caleb’s, gently, lovingly, “I love you.”   
Caleb kisses him again and draws away, magnetic, his eyes to Molly’s as he rounds the corner and leaves the whispered echo of “ _ I love you _ .” behind.


End file.
